Wannabe Farmstead catchup/reintroduction
It's been about an aeon or so since I last did a garden journal (last one tagged any thing to do with the garden was bundled in with a homeschooling post from 2013 as the kids helped J plant some stuff during an unexpected communication outage). Quite a bit has changed since then.
First and only very vaguely related because it's out there, J finally got me a new clothes hoist (the old one is collapsible and the catch to hold it open broke some years back but we were able to make do and it has been collapsing a LOT more frequently recently especially when there was a lot on it). Youngest brought the concrete bags in and had the old one dug out in about ten seconds (only a slight exaggeration), after which he and J erected the new post and left it overnight for the concrete to dry. The following day J got Eldest and I to help put the top on (I didn't do much) and then he strung it.
In the background is our illustrious chicken coop with two new passionfruit vines crawling up it. The old one got murdered as it had apparently stopped producing fruit. Fortunately there's shade in the rest of the yard so the chickens don't have to bake while their shade is regrowing (the door on the coop is purely decorative at this point, it's supposed to be shut at night and opened in the morning but J never shuts it now).
At some stage J planted these sunflowers and they nearly got pulled up as I initially mistook them for some weeds that had looked vaguely similar but had been reasonably sure I'd gotten rid of all of the poor things. Fortunately a combination of laziness and mental note to check with J but constantly forgetting paid off as I recognised the leaves when they got bigger.
The important bit ast the bottom is blurry and hard to read but the packet says they grow to 1.8m tall so he'd planted them to provide some shade to some young avocado trees while they got established.
They're slightly bigger than that. And they still haven't flowered, which given the unexpected size may not be a bad thing as the flower would probably give us a concussion if it fell on us. We have been throwing around jokes about how they're going to the sun.
I originally took the photo of the seed packet to send to a friend after their visit and they were asking if we were QUITE QUITE SURE that it was sunflowers that was planted as the stems have wooded XD
The trees we planted when we first moved in 17 years ago have gotten a lot bigger (though it's hard to tell from the photos I decided to take, I just like taking closeups of fruit x_x).
The poor rosemary bush got massive in a hurry when we first planted it but is now looking a bit worse for wear partly due to the fact Youngest LOVES rosemary (he keeps a couple of sprigs in his room and replaces them when they stop activating, and also loves cooking with it) and partly because it's now massively overshadowed by the orange tree and the dwarf nectaine tree (which didn't realise it was a dwarf and now has some stunted branches trying to grow around what looks like the start of a verandah over the side door it was planted in front of which we had dreams of continuing and still haven't).
The mango tree which was gifted to us as a housewarming present from the real estate agent who helped us buy the house has not grown nearly as much as the other trees but it's at least strong enough to support the weight of its fruit now.
There is a plum tree that was here when we got here (and I just got told there might be a prune next to it). We're surmising it was dropped by a bird or something rather than planted intentionally as it's in a really awkward spot way too close to the fence. J eventually figured out it had green plums after we spent some time waiting for the first-to-us crop to ripen but I decided to playfully challenge him on that after seeing some sun baked ones.
This grapevine came along a bit later, replacing another two grapevines that lost games of tugowar with my old dog (between him and our current dog I think they've cost J quite a bit in fruit trees as they kept "fetching" the big sticks in the ground).
Then there was a lengthy period of time where J didn't seem to be doing a lot in the garden and I asked Eldest to come up with some plans which he did but then didn't get around to showing us. They involved some flowers which were supposed to be food for pollinators, easy to care for and happy enough to be in the shade (combination of mine and Middle's requests) but we couldn't find any of them in any nearby nurseries. There was also an idea for a greenhouse.
And then J picked up activities and a spate of new fruit trees appeared.
We enclosed the back patio to make a catio so Eldest's cats could go outside without going outside. We were concerned that the one that had been a stray as a kitten would wander off too far and not come back (due to misadventure as he's very at home here) and it had the added bonus of not having to deal with litter trays. J took advantage of the more protected (from the chickens) area.
Off frame to the left of this is a big patch of aloe vera. It used to be just one plant in a pot and it got blown/knocked over one day while we were on holiday and that's what we came back to.
I have vague plans for flowers much to J's disgust and am also contemplating a little path leading from our front gate to the house to make it a bit easier on the grandparents (and by extension anyone else) when they come to visit (I think you're "supposed" to walk down the driveway, however "everyone" including us when returning from walks takes the perceived shorter route straight across the yard and it's all uneven surface). Like with all my other brilliant ideas I'm not sure when or if I'll find the time to do it.
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It's the time to renovate the garden 🏡 and plant some more flowers like sunflower 🌻.
!discovery
I think they're more like sun trees XD I have to go find some flowers that like the shade as all the available sun got taken up by fruit trees even though I thought some of it was going to have vegetables.
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Only an aeon, not too long really.
Anyway, how good is getting into the garden! Also, good work for
putting top on the clothes linesupervising the putting on of the top of the clothes line. Your expertise are legendary.I don't mind gardening when I get out there, but most of the time I get out there to take photos ^_^; It's kind of J's dominion and as I've argued with youngest when he tells me I'm never out there doing anything it's because it's J's dominion and everything I do out there is wrong xD
I am pretty good at supervising though ;D
Even better would be...you in the garden supervising and taking a picture of you in the garden supervising. I'd pay to see that. (Not much, like maybe 4 cents.)
🤣 maybe one day if I remember 🙃
I love this garden, looks like plenty of possibilities with a little more love. I dream of buying a place with a large backyard just to do have fruit bearing trees, a herbal garden, and a chupacabra watching it at night. Because those stuff looks cool and sustainable.
It's a good garden and a decent size ^_^
so good in fact that the things that manage to germinate and survive the dog sometimes get bigger than they're supposed to
One of the reasons we chose to buy this house/in this area was because the land size was still pretty good (though of course governments/developers are trying very hard to change that). I think J gets annoyed with our shade trees as they render a a decent chunk of the yard "unusable" for vegetables (most of which apparently want full sun all the time) and then I have to remind him that they keep our cooling bills down (if not for them we would have to run the house aircon a LOT more than we actually do, and even if you walk in to our yard off the street there is a very discernible 1-2 degree drop, and the kids have to run theirs pretty much all the time in summer because their shade tree died, and this is all stuff he knows).
If you're referring to the amazing bare ground with the "little more love" comment that happened some years ago when we had way too many chickens (J got excited with breeding them and having a million chicklets around was honestly pretty damn cute) and they ate literally all the grass to the point where it was unable to regenerate and just completely died.
if you ever need to completely obliterate an area of grass just run a big flock of chickens over it
Then there was arguments with J and Eldest trying to make them understand that grass is a really good insulator (they both think it's just a waste of water because if you don't have the "waterwise" Australian grass you do end up wasting a lot of water trying to keep your lawn green over summer) and then I did the angry partner thing of telling him to just give me my freaking grass so he's very grudgingly letting it grow back into the yard just to keep me happy. It is orders of magnitude slower than buying turf and putting it down immediately and we can't really do the grass seeds thing as it wouldn't survive the birds and us traipsing everywhere in general ^_^;
I think maybe some sort of elevation or having a box with soil set up in the air or wall garden that anticipates the sun movement would be able to help you plant.
Similar thing happened to my grand father's home. The lush grass I once knew gone after they started breeding ducks.
I think the part where there are so many things to do and possibilities about the garden is what attracts me. The process of building it is more important than the harvesting. I used to work on a herbal garden until I didn't have the time to maintain it and snail ate up everything :/ still fun to do for stress relief.
Only one part of the yard gets full sun all day (we had to remove a shade tree that happened to be a widowmaker) and that's where the chickens live (because it's also conveniently enclosed, that's just how the yard works with where the buildings are).
The rest of it is covered in shade trees. The only way anywhere else will get a decent amount of sun is to remove the shade trees asnd that's not an option.
We have considered trying to move the chickens to the shady side but there isn't an easy and/or aesthetically pleasing way to do it.
Wall gardens are definitely an option, we just haven't gotten around to rigging something up (not trusting hanging anything off the fence as it's probably super six).
Drat :< Maybe take it up again?
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Oh my goodness, I had no idea you had such a garden! I'm dead jelly of the mango. I did read that passionfruit love chicken coops, but only last about 5 years, so I have decided not to bother. That might be wrong of course - believe it or not I am sometimes wrong. Don't tell my husband.
Oh man, it would, they are such heavy things! The chooks love pecking at the seeds though so it's great to grow them just for them. Please show me if they flower! Crazy big.
I really enjoyed this post - you sure have a lot going on.
I don't think I've ever posted about it before on hive so ^_^; Do mangos not like growing over where you are? Or space issues? Some mango trees get quite big, not sure if this one will (it might just be slow but all the other trees including the one that was meant to be a dwarf have overshot it).
J reckons that passionfruit will fruit about 7 years on average but might sit there for 20 years so if you want fruit you'd have to keep replacing it but if you just want shade for your chickens with bonus fruit for a while they're good :)
I will definitely be posting about it if they flower, it will either be quite an event or an equally hilarious non-event I think, not sure if there will be much in between XD J reckons we might need to hire a helicopter to reach the flowers if they ever flower XD
Glad you enjoyed it ^_^
A mini helicopter if you shrink yourself down like Mike TV? I like that image a lot.
Nah Victoria doesn't have the climate for mangoes
Sheesh I could be dead in 7 years - may as well grow passionfruit, hey? They really are one of my favourite fruit - Jamie hates the seeds, so I'd have them all to myself. But the passionfruit vine would be a bugger to pull out and replace hey - ugh.
Ideally not but nothing guaranteed I guess?! x_x J sometimes likes to complain if he finds something particularly annoying and I didn't hear anything about it so I guess he didn't find it too difficult. Maybe try it once and see if the fruit is worth the effort of switching out the vines? That way you'll have passionfruit for 10-14 years if nothing else XD
It feels so real and homey, from the garden updates to your family moments. Sometimes the best garden wins come from happy unexpected moment.
We take all the garden wins we can get even though the dog has now gotten old enough to stop digging/pulling everything out xD Thanks for reading ^_^
Those sunflowers are huge. We had some last year in our flower garden. They didn't get near that big. Can't wait to see what you produce. We are hoping to have some tomato plants this year at least.
They really are! We haven't had them this big before either, I don't think our last batch even got as tall as me (and I'm not tall, and also the shortest in my house).
Good luck with the tomato plants! Do they usually grow well for you?
Not for me, but they do for the wife. :-)
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Passion fruit, mango, orange, lemon, avocado, I would love to have them all in my orchard. But they really, really, really endure the winter. Although since I'm planning a greenhouse, if I can figure out how to heat it over the winter. But until then, I'll just look at them in pictures. You guys are really good at it.
Good luck with the greenhouse! :D Eldest wants to have one here as well but from talking to him he doesn't seem to know what he wants precisely.
Fortunately for us (and me in particular!) it doesn't get too cold over here in winter ^_^
Thank you. The good old winter is back here with snow and temperatures of minus 15 degrees.It is important to have a good will to go.